I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a bad mood!

The day I said that to myself, I decided to stop letting anger and impatience take over my life. Hell no! I didn’t want to live the rest of my life “with the baboon “*!

Of course, I can’t avoid all the tricky and imperfect** situations that arise in my life, but I can decide how long they will affect me.

I’m not very good at moving quickly “from the heart to the head”. From emotion to rationalization. Sometimes the path is long and sometimes short. I definitely don’t have much talent and certainly no desire to rationalize too quickly. On the other hand, I’m finding that I’m getting better and better at not staying in a bad mood for too long. Of course, things still affect me, but for less time, and no longer to the point of obsession! Whereas I used to be able to “ruminate” on an idea or a problem for days on end (don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t ruminating all the time, but the thought too often took over my mind!), today I think about it, but I’m not a prisoner of the problem. It affects me without obsessing!

I was wondering recently how it was that I had changed in this respect.

You know what I’ve found? I laugh more often at all kinds of annoyances when I do my laughter yoga exercises! Laughing at the argument, laughing at the VISA card, laughing at the tears, laughing at the chore, laughing at the water damage… so many opportunities to laugh at something that isn’t funny at first! Even though it’s not funny, I condition my body to laugh at it.

Do you think problems have less of a hold on us when we practice laughing at them?

Well, now I say yes! I’ve got the proof!

So, if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in a bad mood either, I encourage you to put into practice something very effective: laugh more often!

If you don’t think you can do it yourself, there are a number of tools available to help you.

Ask me which are the best!

In the meantime, practice intentional smiling, a bit like Mona Lisa if you like. And don’t let a bad mood spoil your life for too long.

Laughter, joy and health

Linda

*: to babble means to sulk

**: do you like the expression I’ve chosen to talk about what has the potential to make me angry or frustrated?!